Monday, December 12, 2016

Please, tell me to go to hell!

Hundreds of page hits per day—day after day—month after month—year after year—127 so far today alone! But not a single comment! Are my posts that dull?—that irrelevant?—that unengaging? Perhaps they are! Yes, it's quite possible... I freely admit it... in fact, that is my guess...
Perhaps I ought to offer a strident opinion on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict—would that help matters?
Yes, let's talk politics: Should I pick a side on the corporate duopoly and viciously condemn one or the other of their champions? Would that do it?
Please, tell me to go to hell!—that would be preferable to this unnerving silence!
Or is it that all these thousands of hits are merely the ghostly traces of hackers and internet bots? But even this cannot be an excuse—even an automated reply would be welcome—perhaps an "out of office" message...

Thank you in advance,

Your humble servant,
~ B.F. Späth

Wednesday, December 7, 2016

"You Should Pick Up the Brush Again."

That's what he told me. I was at a party a few weeks ago and ran into an old friend whom I had not seen in perhaps 20 years. And I had completely forgotten that he had purchased one of my paintings back in the day. He twice repeated this suggestion, and then e-mailed me later to mention it a third time.
I had given up painting for well over a decade (for numerous reasons)—but every now and then, the idea of returning to it would occur to me. And as I am highly susceptible to almost any type of suggestion, my friend's opinion was the deciding factor in "picking up the brush again".

Here's where I had left off:

My Working Method
"I begin with an 18th century formal garden design by Dezallier D’Arganville, French naturalist and author of La Theorie et la pratique du jardinage (1709). His exhuberant and eccentric designs were intended to “outshine Versailles”—and they provide me with a perfect blueprint for my otherworldly compositions. The design is then constructed in three dimensions utilizing Cinema4-D. Lighting and camera angles are manipulated to give me the dramatic effects that I want."

18th century garden design by Dezallier


Computer-generated model



Finished painting: Grande Parterre 4, Oil on canvas 8" x 11"


You can view more of my paintings here:
https://www.instagram.com/b.f.spath/

And archival prints are available here:
https://www.etsy.com/shop/SPATHFINEART?ref=hdr_shop_menu